Surgeon Rear Admiral (Retd) V K Singh, Director, Asia Simpler- Lean Healthcare Excellence Adjunct Research Professor-Ivey School of Business, University of Ontario, Canada, Chairman – Health Division, Quality Council of India and Member – International Bio safety Working Group
By- Dr V K Singh
Healthcare delivery is a nightmare and challenge for health planners in every country may it be in India or USA where health budget consumes 16% GDP, yet community is not satisfied with outcome and many improvements are being considered. One of them is Obama Care in health delivery that uses Information Technology (IT), insurance and cost cutting as one of the methods. It is a different story in India where the community is competing for limited resources and only 1.5 % GDP is spent on health.
The healthcare industry has experienced a proliferation of innovations aimed at enhancing life expectancy, quality of life, diagnostic and treatment options, as well as the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the healthcare system. Information technology has played a vital role in the innovation of healthcare systems. says Vincent & Norman of University of Miami. It is normal corollary to innovate and use technology to reduce disease burden by improving health outcome by use of IT, m-health , e-health thru effective Hospital Information System ( HIS ), Telemedicine & Electronic Health Record (EHR). IT has been effectively used to reduce operating cost by Iris Hospital Kolkata, a newly commissioned Hospital. In this hospital IT system has been innovatively developed and used on real time basis, unlike by customization of existing IT solutions available in the market by various hospitals. Hospital has used IT to control patient movement and various other activities in clinical area. Use of various devices like Tablet, Palm held computing have been integrated at all levels to improve hospital operations as IT has been used for collection of Data to understand the level of nosocomial infection, medication error , inventory management to reduce cost by removing redundancy and improve profit margin.
The use of bar code, Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) tag are being used at lib in various hospitals This benefits not only patients but enhances the image of the hospital and thereby increasing popularity & profitability. Industryweek.com conducted a study about the effects of innovation and they found that, •overall revenue growth (78%), customer satisfaction (76%), growth in revenue from new products or services (74%), increased productivity (71%), and earnings/profit margins (68%)– were a result of the impact of innovation efforts. [Jusko, 2008] as quoted in The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Volume 15(1), 2010, Article 2.
The use of technology forces healthcare professionals to perform efficiently and reduce scope of error. Lean experts say that every process in hospital has 70 -90% waste, reducing it will increase value for which patient is ready to pay. No patient is willing to pay for waiting in hospital, nosocomial infection and medication error. Collection of reliable real-time data, its analysis and collation can reveal real problem to find solution easily. Innovation is four types eg Product innovation, Process innovation, Marketing innovation and Organisational innovation. Technology is used for streamlining process and development of new technology is based on health care providers and patients need. Innovation in health care is ultimately in product, process and structure .
Innovation has to be market driven and quest for new technology to improve operation, transparency, accountability and reduction of waste would ultimately benefit healthcare providers and patients by reducing cost.
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